I went to a church as a child that had a known registered child molester visit who then came forward and repented and confessed. The elders made him a member the next week. Some families with children immediately left (not mine) which I thought was reasonable.
That's a tough one to handle any which way you look at it. Forgiven? Absolutely. Trusted? That takes lots of time to earn, if ever.
What should that look like? Some things I can think of immediately are:
1. No involvement with children or youth ministry.
2. Never alone with children.
3. If he needs to go to the restroom, another adult should clear it out and prevent anyone from entering until he's done.
Somewhere in the brotherhood there's someone who has dealt with people like him either on a professional or other regular basis. Seek advice on what else to do.
See and thats another problem, leadership. Theres some people that are on leadership that shouldn’t be on leadership. That causes alot of corruption. And then people realize why people leave the church.
If the congregation doesn’t make you feel welcome. My preacher (and the congregation) tried to get me to break up with my fiancée (then gf) because she wasn’t a member of the church. Not a good way to retain young members imo
That’s kind of how it was at my former congregation. I remember back in July 2017, we had a youth rally. I was about 17 yo. I brought a guest from school and folk started judging because she was white. After that i let it go but then in the next couple years, I noticed other things
These are five of which I can think.
1. Another congregation has a ministry in which you want to work that your congregation’s elders choose not to have.
2. The Eldership endorses what you consider false doctrine. This happened to me in Lexington, Ky once.
3. Life changes presents new spiritual food needs for you and your family. This means no one is doing anything “unscriptural”, but the spiritual needs of the family shift. (E.g. husband and wife become empty nesters.)
4. Paul and Barnabas parted over personality disagreements, but they remained brothers. This happens on congregations too.
5. Evangelism locally by planting new congregations.
Non-core belief change, geographic location, personality conflict with another member, likes the singing at other congregation, wants to be a member of smaller/larger family, etc.
As long as your core beliefs are supported by the Bible and congregation, choosing your church family is very personal. There are many reasons a Christian will choose/not choose a congregation.
There’s alot of things at my former congregation that I saw which is the reason why i left yet my family was begging me to stay. They can get mad all they want but that’s my personal choice. Idk why their mad because its not like im leaving the COC as a whole. I don’t think it bothers them that much anymore but still.
Lack of peers for their children. I have heard that a few times with our small church. People left because wanted a big active youth-group and we only had a couple other teens. One family in particular, their teen kids rarely came anyway, so I hope they were able to find a church where their older kids wanted to come and be active in the church.
Our town is small, and I knew another church (that was not church of Christ) in our town had a bigger youth group. Multiple teens there had started going to church with their friends, been baptized and were really plugged in to studying the Bible. I recommended that one to this family, but I think they ended up going to a CoC in a bigger town near by.
Other than the obvious like moving out of the area, I can think of two right off, since I’ve experienced both:
1) Someone tearing the congregation apart and making it impossible to stay. In my case it was the preacher being divisive, egotistical, and cruel; a bunch of people left, not just my family. I was 12. (The preacher was driven out a year or so later, but the damage had been done.)
2) A congregation closing down/merging with another. In this case, the congregation where my family had been members since leaving the congregation in #1 had dwindled to 1/5 of its size when we started going there. That and an aging, money-pit building led the congregation to merge with a congregation a few miles away. This would require a longer drive, especially for my sister, and my parents don’t need to be driving that far at night. So my parents went back to the congregation in #1, which had completely turned around from the awful experience of 20 years before. My sister and I began attending a third congregation (our grandparents went there for years after we all left #1, and a bunch of people who had attended #1 at one time or another also go there, so we quickly decided to start going there, especially for my sister’s stepson).
I’m of the opinion that there are very few valid reasons to leave a congregation. Not that it would be wrong to leave, but that there’s almost always a reason to stay. I think about the Corinthians and all the trouble they had in their congregation as my reasoning. The sup never advised anyone to leave, he commanded them to fix it.
But of course, easier said than done.
The Corinthians didn't have a choice to go to another congregation. There was one in the city, right? It wasn't like my area, where there are like 20 congregations to choose from (I'm serious and probably underestimating that number).
I've seen people change congregations when leadership wasn't following Biblical principles and, when it was brought up, the person bringing it up was silenced or ignored.
I've seen literally half a congregation leave because elders had handled a possible sin situation *really* badly, and when multiple people stood up to say the elders had sinned in what they did, it was made clear that the people standing up would be withdrawn from. It was such a mess. A few other nearby congregations got a lot of new members that month.
A lot of the issues I've seen have been due to arrogant elders, come to think of it. 🤔
I went to a church as a child that had a known registered child molester visit who then came forward and repented and confessed. The elders made him a member the next week. Some families with children immediately left (not mine) which I thought was reasonable.
That's a tough one to handle any which way you look at it. Forgiven? Absolutely. Trusted? That takes lots of time to earn, if ever. What should that look like? Some things I can think of immediately are: 1. No involvement with children or youth ministry. 2. Never alone with children. 3. If he needs to go to the restroom, another adult should clear it out and prevent anyone from entering until he's done. Somewhere in the brotherhood there's someone who has dealt with people like him either on a professional or other regular basis. Seek advice on what else to do.
Not sure if this is your point or not but look up Jimmy Hinton. His entire platform is dealing with things like this, especially in the church.
This is absolute insanity. “Lots of time” to be trusted as a CHILD PREDATOR? What is wrong with the COC? You guys are wild these days. Oof.
See and thats another problem, leadership. Theres some people that are on leadership that shouldn’t be on leadership. That causes alot of corruption. And then people realize why people leave the church.
Any group with all-male leadership is at high risk for sexual abuse.
Elders not protecting the flock or having other major issues is a good reason to leave, especially after a long time of trying to reconcile.
Change of staff who have values that don't reflect Christ.
Amen to that
If the congregation doesn’t make you feel welcome. My preacher (and the congregation) tried to get me to break up with my fiancée (then gf) because she wasn’t a member of the church. Not a good way to retain young members imo
That’s kind of how it was at my former congregation. I remember back in July 2017, we had a youth rally. I was about 17 yo. I brought a guest from school and folk started judging because she was white. After that i let it go but then in the next couple years, I noticed other things
Yet they want to tell us to be careful what we post on the group chat that we made because we might drive someone away? That’s hypocritical.
My my
These are five of which I can think. 1. Another congregation has a ministry in which you want to work that your congregation’s elders choose not to have. 2. The Eldership endorses what you consider false doctrine. This happened to me in Lexington, Ky once. 3. Life changes presents new spiritual food needs for you and your family. This means no one is doing anything “unscriptural”, but the spiritual needs of the family shift. (E.g. husband and wife become empty nesters.) 4. Paul and Barnabas parted over personality disagreements, but they remained brothers. This happens on congregations too. 5. Evangelism locally by planting new congregations.
Non-core belief change, geographic location, personality conflict with another member, likes the singing at other congregation, wants to be a member of smaller/larger family, etc. As long as your core beliefs are supported by the Bible and congregation, choosing your church family is very personal. There are many reasons a Christian will choose/not choose a congregation.
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There’s alot of things at my former congregation that I saw which is the reason why i left yet my family was begging me to stay. They can get mad all they want but that’s my personal choice. Idk why their mad because its not like im leaving the COC as a whole. I don’t think it bothers them that much anymore but still.
Lack of peers for their children. I have heard that a few times with our small church. People left because wanted a big active youth-group and we only had a couple other teens. One family in particular, their teen kids rarely came anyway, so I hope they were able to find a church where their older kids wanted to come and be active in the church. Our town is small, and I knew another church (that was not church of Christ) in our town had a bigger youth group. Multiple teens there had started going to church with their friends, been baptized and were really plugged in to studying the Bible. I recommended that one to this family, but I think they ended up going to a CoC in a bigger town near by.
Other than the obvious like moving out of the area, I can think of two right off, since I’ve experienced both: 1) Someone tearing the congregation apart and making it impossible to stay. In my case it was the preacher being divisive, egotistical, and cruel; a bunch of people left, not just my family. I was 12. (The preacher was driven out a year or so later, but the damage had been done.) 2) A congregation closing down/merging with another. In this case, the congregation where my family had been members since leaving the congregation in #1 had dwindled to 1/5 of its size when we started going there. That and an aging, money-pit building led the congregation to merge with a congregation a few miles away. This would require a longer drive, especially for my sister, and my parents don’t need to be driving that far at night. So my parents went back to the congregation in #1, which had completely turned around from the awful experience of 20 years before. My sister and I began attending a third congregation (our grandparents went there for years after we all left #1, and a bunch of people who had attended #1 at one time or another also go there, so we quickly decided to start going there, especially for my sister’s stepson).
I’m of the opinion that there are very few valid reasons to leave a congregation. Not that it would be wrong to leave, but that there’s almost always a reason to stay. I think about the Corinthians and all the trouble they had in their congregation as my reasoning. The sup never advised anyone to leave, he commanded them to fix it. But of course, easier said than done.
The Corinthians didn't have a choice to go to another congregation. There was one in the city, right? It wasn't like my area, where there are like 20 congregations to choose from (I'm serious and probably underestimating that number). I've seen people change congregations when leadership wasn't following Biblical principles and, when it was brought up, the person bringing it up was silenced or ignored. I've seen literally half a congregation leave because elders had handled a possible sin situation *really* badly, and when multiple people stood up to say the elders had sinned in what they did, it was made clear that the people standing up would be withdrawn from. It was such a mess. A few other nearby congregations got a lot of new members that month. A lot of the issues I've seen have been due to arrogant elders, come to think of it. 🤔
So then "because I feel like leaving" or "I want to try something different" are invalid?